(Headline USA) President Joe Biden is proposing to spend roughly $37 billion for fighting and preventing crime, including $13 billion to help communities hire and train 100,000 police officers over five years.
Biden will outline his anti-crime program on Thursday during a visit to Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. The Democratic president will request the money from Congress as part of his latest budget proposal, according to senior administration officials who previewed the plan on the condition of anonymity ahead of the formal announcement.
Polls show that, after the economy, crime is one of the top concerns of Americans entering into the 2022 midterm season. That presents a serious problem for Democrats, whose soft-on-crime, defund-the-police policies have created the worst wave of violent crime in decades, including a spike in homicides.
As part of Biden’s plans, $3 billion would be geared toward clearing court backlogs and resolving cases involving murders and guns.
The president also wants to use $15 billion to create a grant program that would fund ideas for preventing violent crime or creating a public-health response to nonviolent incidents, aimed at reducing the burden on law enforcement.
Despite using law-and-order rhetoric that appeals to many, the plan largely mirrors the proposals of social-justice activist groups like Black Lives Matter, who have long advocated for replacing police in many situations with social workers.
The remaining $5 billion would support programs intended to stop violence before it occurs, although it was unclear whether any of that would actually go toward addressing the problem or if it was a euphemism for Democrats to throw additional funding to failed inner-city social programs.
After speaking in Wilkes-Barre, Biden is scheduled to attend a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee in Philadelphia. Then he’s expected to spend a long weekend in Wilmington, Delaware, where he has a home.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
